


Our Lady Of

by Siobhan_Schuyler



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-02
Updated: 2006-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-19 07:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siobhan_Schuyler/pseuds/Siobhan_Schuyler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean fights sleep as long as he can. Sam feels him drift off then jerk awake, determined to see her this time, or maybe just bent on keeping her away; Sam isn't sure which. Protectiveness or envy. The two don't cohabit easily.</p><p>Around two a.m. Dean is down for the count, half sitting up against his pillows, dead asleep, head lolling. Sam backs up till his butt is snug against Dean's leg, and waits.</p><p>It's two days past Halloween. All Souls' Day, Dad calls it, something to do with death and sins, as all things are. It's the day Mom died, ten years ago. She'll come tonight, surely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Lady Of

The sheets tent around Sam's knees, the shadow puppets shifting with him. They fall apart when Dean reaches over and yanks the flashlight out of Sam's hands and turns it off with a yawn. "Go to sleep, Sammy," Dean groans, sounding like Dad and much more weary than any nine year old should. It's been a long day for both of them, bookended with training and trick or treating. But Sam's wide awake.

He sighs, put-upon, and listens for the plastic clatter of the flashlight on the bedside table, out of reach. Sam's breath catches and he huddles closer, tucking a foot under Dean's for warmth. Dean grunts but doesn't move, already mostly asleep.

She doesn't come that night. Sam doesn't know whether to be thankful or disappointed.

*

"Describe her to me again."

It's years later and by now Sam must've told Dean dozens of times. And besides-- "You have pictures, Dean. You _knew_ her! You should be the one to describe her to _me_ ," Sam whines, but his heart's not really in it.

"Describe her to me," Dean persists, undaunted though carefully avoiding looking at Sam. He's sitting cross-legged on the motel comforter, divvying last night's loot. Dean likes suckers and jawbreakers and sour things. Sam prefers the chocolates and the Smarties. The Pop Rocks are set aside carefully, to be argued over later.

Sam folds and unfolds an empty Snickers wrapper, watching Dean. Who looks ridiculous in his Spiderman pajamas and the bright red plastic fireman helmet he's been sporting since yesterday. He's too old for dress-up (Sam doesn't remember him ever being young enough for anything), but the thing makes Sam laugh so Dean wears it around the house and keeps forgetting about it, perched rakishly on his head.

"Tall," Sam begins despite his half-hearted objections. He varies the order of the qualitatives, wondering which ones stick with Dean the most. "Long blonde hair. Very pretty. She smiles a lot."

Dean's mouth twitches into a near-smile of his own, then settles back into mock concentration. Sam sees Dean slip a pack of Pop Rocks into his own pile, the blatant lack of stealth daring Sam to say something about it. He doesn't. "What else?"

Sam twists open a roll of Smarties and dumps them on the comforter. They leave a powdery residue when he separates them by color. "It's not scary. She sits next to me and pets my hair. Her hands are small and soft. She's never said anything. And she never comes when Dad's awake, or if you are."

Dean's shoulders stiffen. Sam hates telling him this part, but if he doesn't, Dean will ask, and Sam hates even more hearing the way Dean's voice breaks when he asks to hear what he already knows. Sam doesn't think he'd take it well either if Mom came to visit but didn't want to see him. Sam asked her, once, but was only given a tender smile for an answer, and the feel of her fingertips ghosting over his brow. Next to him, Dean slept on, oblivious.

"Always around Halloween, huh," Dean said lightly, doing his best to sound uninterested. Sam thought it didn't sound like much of a question.

"Yeah. Every night for a few days before, and a few nights after, too."

Neither of them needs to bring up the anniversary of Mom's death, or the way Dad shuts down at this time of year, spending money that's usually rationed on things like costumes and candy and pumpkin-carving kits, without lectures about what's important and what's kid stuff. Sam wonders why she doesn't visit Dad, then, if Dad misses her so much all the time. Sam feels a little ashamed that maybe he's not mourning her like he should, that he only ever really thinks of her when Dean brings her up, or when Dad fails to.

"Huh," Dean grunts, and there endeth the conversation. Dean rips open a pack of Sour Patch Kids more violently than necessary, and if he hadn't offered Sam the green ones, Sam might've thought Dean was mad at him.

Sam chews thoughtfully, pressing the rough candy to his palate and secretly looking forward to bedtime.

*

Dean fights sleep as long as he can. Sam feels him drift off then jerk awake, determined to see her this time, or maybe just bent on keeping her away; Sam isn't sure which. Protectiveness or envy. The two don't cohabit easily.

Around two a.m. Dean is down for the count, half sitting up against his pillows, dead asleep, head lolling. Sam backs up till his butt is snug against Dean's leg, and waits.

It's two days past Halloween. All Souls' Day, Dad calls it, something to do with death and sins, as all things are. It's the day Mom died, ten years ago. She'll come tonight, surely.

The shadows of the room are thick and comforting, blank. His fear of the dark is suspended around Halloween, perhaps overridden by his desire for candy, or simply because he knows that around this time of year, she's the only thing hiding out there, out of sight. Sam listens to the cars speeding past on the highway, to the loud, rumbly huffs of Dad's half-snores from the next bed, to Dean's quiet sighs. Sam doesn't hear anything else, and he's almost asleep too when he feels the gentle dip of the mattress and, a thudding heartbeat later, the soft trail of her fingers at his temple, brushing the hair out of his face.

Sam rolls onto his back and watches her watch him. Watches her peaceful smile, the flutter of her lashes when her eyes follow her hand across his face. He closes his eyes when she palms his cheek, leans into the touch. She's solid, concrete, _here_. When her caress returns to his hair and he looks at her again, she looks just as real as Dean or Dad would in the dark. The weak light from outside makes her hair look colorless, but Sam knows without a doubt that it's blond, the color of straw, maybe a little paler. The tips of it are a little dry and split between his fingers when he reaches out to touch it. The length of it is thick, familiar. Her smile widens into a grin and she leans into the tug of his fingers in her hair, her eyes playful.

She is not Mom. She is not the woman in photographs, the mother Dean longs for, the woman Dad can't forget. She's Sam's, and Sam's alone. When he scrambles to sit up and throw his arms around her waist, she pulls him in, a gentle arm around his back, a hand in his hair as he buries his face into her shoulder. She smells like fruity shampoo, sunscreen, and soot. The bones of her shoulder are tiny, rounded, feminine; Sam holds on harder than he's ever held on to anything, even Dean, and squeezes his eyes against the wetness pooling in his lashes.

 _Sam._

Her hand cradles the back of his head and Sam's breath shudders in his chest. She is not Mom. She is Sam's. His fingers find a fold of her nightgown and hold on.

 _Sam. I miss you, baby..._

Her voice breaks, uneven, but Sam can still hear the smile in it, the serenity. He grasps at a history that's not there, finds it familiar even in absentia. He's crying, great big sobs shuddering out of him, but it's almost comforting, like a great breath he didn't know he was holding. He feels the corresponding sadness and grief like he's looking at them from across the room, feeling them and knowing them, without suffering them. Her hand rubs soothing circles on his back.

 _Sam. You have to forgive yourself, okay, baby?_

Sam has no idea what he's meant to forgive himself for, but he feels it in his bones when he nods, sniffles messily and tightens his hold on her middle, arms aching. Her ribs heave against the insides of his arms with each one of her breaths.

She is his, not Mom. She's his and this grief is his and he owns this sadness in a way that's different from sharing Dad's or Dean's. This is his and horrible and right. When she lays him down again (awkwardly because he's tall for a ten year old, tall as Dean) the last of his sobs is nothing but a shivered sigh, the weight in his chest gone as fast as it came. The skin at the corner of his eye stings when she thumbs it, brushes a finger there, down to his cheek. She is smiling again and Sam slips back into his peaceful scrutiny of her like he didn't just rip half of his heart out for reasons he doesn't know about yet.

 _Sam. Go to sleep, Sam._

And Sam does. Nods and turns against Dean, buries his face into Dean's shoulder and tucks his hand around Dean's hip. The last thing he remembers is her hand rubbing his back, and the steady rise and fall of Dean's belly against the crook of his elbow.

*

Dad leaves around sunrise so it's Halloween booty for breakfast again. Sam is twirling a spoon in his glass of chocolate milk, trying to break apart the clumps of powder. Dean has the TV on in the other room and is watching Sam, chewing a Tootsie Roll with his mouth open.

"Did Mom come last night?" He sounds so tired he's barely hiding his disappointment at having fallen asleep. He hasn't showered yet and his hair is sticking up funny, the skin under his eyes dark and puffy.

Sam's milk is revolving by itself in its glass and he's got the content of four mini packets of M&Ms spread before him, separated into neat piles, by color. He cups both hands around the orange ones and pushes them across the table, towards Dean. "She didn't," he says, and it's his turn to avoid eye contact. 'Sorry."

Dean shrugs, and Sam feels like his brother might actually be losing interest, if only out of self-preservation. "Maybe next year," Sam offers, for what little comfort it might actually be.

In the next room, Wile E. Coyote meets with the business end of his own ACME missile, and walks away, no worse for wear.

*

Dean is wrong. She's not Mom, she's Sam's. And she doesn't come back the next year, or the year after that. Sam lets himself forget about her, mostly, overriding the sense-memory with years of arcane knowledge about stranger things. It works, mostly.

The next time Sam sees her is at one in the afternoon on a bright September day in California, and she has never met him, as he is now, two feet taller and all filled out. She introduces herself with a smile he knows, and she smells faintly of fruity shampoo and sunscreen. He tries to ignore the smudge of soot his fingers leave on her arm.


End file.
